


King of the Clouds

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Character Study, Cloud Watching, Gen, Other, hal makes a comment and doesnt realise its dirty, i guess, slow human brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 08:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Hal is forced to watch the clouds one day, the act becomes nostalgic later.





	King of the Clouds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deomai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deomai/gifts).



When Hal was simply code, body or not, sleep wasn’t something he could do. Imagining, however, he could do. 

 

Dirk had left his shades on his bedside table for the day, and Hal, inside of those shades, could only stare where he was placed. He was directed towards the window, something Dirk did on purpose after finding out Hal saved every second of recorded footage he got.    
Hal watched the clouds, slowly moving in and out of his vision. It’s not like he could turn at all, watch the cloud until it disappeared over the horizon. No, he was left, wondering if the cloud made it safely home, away from this prison Hal was left to consider his life, and past the sun. 

He deleted that train of thought, knowing it was stupid. 

 

He spent most of his day looking through pesterlogs, talking to Dirk’s friends when Dirk didn’t respond. He was simply an autoresponder, after all. Roxy had been the only person to treat him like he was more than a program, but he often felt like he was being force fed fake hope. He doesn’t trust any of them.   
Hell, how could he? A version of  _ himself  _ had left him on this table, unable to do anything. If he can’t even trust someone with his brain, how could he trust anyone around him?    
Trust was also a stupid train of thought. He was code, not a human, he had no need to figure out who to trust when he could do the calculations and find his own, more efficient solutions. 

 

He ceased pestering Roxy, and let himself focus back on the clouds he was forced to look at. He wondered if Dirk was taking out his self-loathing by torturing Hal. 

Those clouds looked so soft. He wished he could reach forward and grab one, hide his face in one so he could scream out his frustrations of being completely immobile. 

Soft was a stupid concept. He couldn’t feel anything, even if he could grab one of those clouds. 

 

\--

 

Hal reminisced over the memory, curled up on the roof of the 360 ocean view apartment. He had gotten his body, able to move anywhere he wished… as long as he didn’t go near the water. Dirk was asleep, and Hal had decided to come to the roof and watch the dark clouds float over the stars. 

They look as soft as he remembers. 

 

He daydreamed of being able to sleep, to have a moment's rest from the constant drone of code in his mind. He supposed code would run through, even if he was asleep. He simply wished he could think of nothing. A moment to himself, in peace. 

 

He wanted to sigh, but this body didn’t require air. So he simply slouched his shoulders, and hugged onto his knees tighter. He could easily crush himself if he tried hard enough. 

Dirk had figured Hal would have similar tendances to him and added a program to Hal’s code so he was unable to destroy himself.    
Go figure.    
He hated the nagging voice, somewhere in his body, screaming NO at every thought of throwing himself off of the top of this building, into the ocean below. His body would stop running when water damage hit. 

It would be the closest thing he could get to touching the clouds. 

He chose not to add things to his thought log after that. Many hours went by, where Hal simply sat, curled in on himself, and watched the clouds move. He was able to watch a couple disappear over the horizon, and wished he too could escape as easy as the clouds could. 

 

The sky had shifted in colour, and soon the sun was blocking out most of his view. The sun was in his ‘eyes’, and he found the sensation of being blinded unpleasant.    
He stood from his spot, effectively scaring a couple of seagulls into leaving the roof, and made his way back in the apartment to wake Dirk for the day. 

 

\--

 

Hal had woken up suddenly human, and everything was horribly overwhelming. He could feel everything that touched him, which was novel at first, but now was stressing him out. 

The first thing he did was try to find something that was familiar, because everything was different. 

His sight was different, there was no longer things written in his vision of Dirk’s vitals at all times, or his notes. He no longer had the long drawl of code in the back of his mind. He could suddenly smell, and he tried to make note to talk to Dirk about cleaning the place, but realised his notes app was no longer there. He could… feel. 

 

He hated it. 

 

He struggled to think of what could be familiar, because a lot of his ‘life’ was spent perched on Dirk’s nose, and he doubted he would let that happen while he was in a human body. (He attempted to make note to ask about that as well, but again, his notes app wasn’t there.) 

But, what was familiar was the clouds. 

He sprinted towards the stairs. He sprinted up the stairs, two steps at a time with his long legs. He sprinted towards the air conditioning unit and climbed the ladder up to the top, just to sit down and stare up at the sky. 

It was soothing. Maybe one day he will experience something as soft as he imagined the clouds gentle caress being. 

 

\---

 

“Dirk, I have a request.” Hal said, closing the door to the stairs behind him. He was still tussled from bed, and his bare feet were obviously filthy from the roof. 

Dirk, however, was lazily lounged on the couch, fiddling with some new project. He glanced at his newly human AI and tilted his head to the side. 

 

“Whatever could you want from me?” He asked blankly, obviously not caring. He went immediately back to his metal contraption, only pausing again to take a sip of his orange soda. 

“May I sit on your face?” For old times sake, he left off the end, since he didn’t get time to say it. Dirk had already spit his drink all over the carpet. 

Which reminded him!

 

“We also need to clean in here.”    
“Oh my God.” 


End file.
